Deepening the Drift
By Elinor Ann Walker
The lake drops off eight feet out, a shelf.
I told you the drop wasn’t that steep
as if unveiling a secret. The water gets darker
there, from slate to ink, where my words fell
off into lies. Waves lap the sides of my boat where
I rock, alone in all that is lilting. Mist shrouds
the edges then lifts. Fallen log. Three turtles slide
into water like apparitions. Closer, one circle,
then another, surfaces, rings that in their motion
capture stillness. Or all that is below or is not,
the nothing now, or all that listing starboard
that happened from your over-steering. I toss
you over in my mind like a stone falling deeper
where the lake drops off, until you are eight
feet out,
buried in silt.Elinor Ann Walker (she/her) holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, lives near the mountains, and prefers to write outside. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in anthologies and journals including Cherry Tree, Hayden's Ferry Review, Jet Fuel Review, Nimrod, Northwest Review, Plume, and The Southern Review, among others. She has recently completed a full-length manuscript of poetry and is working on two chapbooks. Find her online at elinorannwalker.com.
If you like what we do, please nominate us for your Favorite Lit Mag of 2023 by filling out this form!
12/19 / Meet the Artist with visiting poet-in-residence Kristen Renee Miller / The Library at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 6:00 pm EST / Free
12/19 / Poetry Reading with visiting poet-in-residence Kristen Renee Miller + Arsimmer McCoy / The Library at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 7:30 pm EST / Free
Are you a SWWIMmer with literary news to share (publication/feature/award/book/book review)? We’d love to shout out your accomplishments in our Weekly Spotlight! Please email swwimmiami@gmail.com. (No DMs on any social media platforms, please.)
Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter/X, and Bluesky for more updates—and visit our website to see past, present, and future readings & events.
**We do our best to preserve the integrity of each poem; however, due to programming limitations, some poems may read differently on a mobile phone and in certain browsers. For best viewing, use Chrome on a desktop/laptop.



I love the imagery and the mysteriousness that builds to the last startling line.